iPhone 18 Pro Max sample gallery: variable aperture in real shooting conditions

When Apple introduced the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, the headline camera feature was a variable aperture main lens with four settings – F1.48, F1.8, F2.8 and F4 – a first for iPhone. That wider F1.48 maximum is roughly half a stop faster than the F1.78 lens found on several previous Pro models, which should let the camera capture about 45% more light. For our sample gallery, we put that new, larger aperture to work across a range of subjects and lighting conditions to see how it performs.

The iPhone 18 Pro’s variable aperture provides a modest degree of depth-of-field control by letting you choose your aperture, though in practical terms, those apertures translate to roughly F5 to F14 on a full-frame camera; even at F1.48, you won’t be able to get the shallow depth of field possible with a dedicated camera and a fast lens. However, when wide open, the faster lens provides a real, if modest, background separation advantage over older iPhones, and stopping down will deepen the depth of field enough to show visible differences.

Since the iPhone 18 Pro‘s cameras are otherwise broadly similar to the previous generation, we biased our gallery toward shooting at F1.48 to assess what that faster aperture can deliver – and where its limits are, including several sequences shot at all four aperture settings to show how out-of-focus regions shift as the lens closes down. We also pointed the camera directly at point sources of light to see how the lens handled flare at different apertures and whether there was a meaningful difference in creating sunstars.

If you’re deciding whether to upgrade from an older iPhone Pro, our upgrade guide compares the iPhone 18 Pro to every Pro model back to the 12. For a broader look at the new phones and what else changed beyond the camera, see our launch coverage.

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